By: Nick Gambino
Big news in tech this week – Napster has just been sold for $207 million. You read that right, the infamous digital audio sharing company that nearly tanked the entire music industry in the early 2000s is somehow still a thing.
Napster was originally founded in 1999 and allowed users to share digital files of music. This is where a lot of us learned what an MP3 was. This was the beginning of a digital age for music but due to the free sharing nature of the platform it also threatened a multi-billion dollar industry with extinction.
Record labels acted swiftly, suing Napster and winning. Steve Jobs swooped in to save the day with the creation of iTunes and a way to monetize digital music. Many of us assumed incorrectly that that was the end of Napster. The company stuck around and was eventually acquired by Rhapsody and transformed into yet another streaming music platform like Spotify and Tidal.
Now, tech commerce startup Infinite Reality sees some sort of value in the largely irrelevant company (at least in the wider public conscience) as they’ve bought Napster for a whopping $207 million.
This price tag may not seem like a lot compared to other recent tech company acquisitions like Google’s purchase of Wiz for $32 billion, but Napster doesn’t seem to have a lot to offer other than its name. And that’s probably the only way they were able to even fetch a sale price in the hundreds of millions – name recognition.
“By acquiring Napster, we’re giving a path to a brighter future for artists, fans, and the music industry at large,” the CEO of Infinite Reality, John Acunto, said in a blog post announcing the acquisition. “This strategic move aligns with Infinite Reality’s vision to lead an internet industry shift from a flat 2D clickable web to a 3D conversational one – giving all creators modern tools to better engage, monetize, and measure their audiences.”
2025 is a very different time than 1999 or 2000. The landscape has changed dramatically and the internet and media streaming dominate every aspect of entertainment consumption. Napster as an MP3 sharing platform seems crude in comparison. And while they were certainly the villainous, bad boys of their era, this new chapter of Napster sees them following the rules and playing it relatively safe.
Infinite Reality intends to create a 3D, virtual environment that allows fans to experience music and entertainment in new and immersive ways. We’ll have to see if that approach brings Napster back into the limelight in any sort of meaningful way.
